


Crossing the threshold

by SkittishCat



Series: Beyond the Walls [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: The curse of the determinant character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21604516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkittishCat/pseuds/SkittishCat
Summary: The newcomer adjusts to his new role in Clementine’s regime as she faces the final challenges that stand between her and control of the east.
Relationships: Clementine & Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running)
Series: Beyond the Walls [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1479128
Kudos: 6





	Crossing the threshold

Their numbers seemed endless. There was nowhere to hide. Nothing could stop their advance. He simply couldn’t escape. Everywhere he turned, he ran into another one… The Rick fans… they just wouldn’t leave him alone. Some seemed reasonable, just wanting to know more about Rick from the perspective of his family. Others were downright insane, asking Glenn to do anything from killing a gang of robbers for them to exorcising the gremlins from their water pump. It was like they didn’t understand that Rick was just a man, not some sort of god, and that Glenn didn’t inherit any sort of superpowers from him. Suddenly, Glenn understood why Clementine got so surly whenever she realized she was dealing with one of her groupies.

When Clementine left The Commonwealth, her guards had become Glenn’s guards, and they helped him to deal with the swarm of fans as much as they reasonably could. When citizens came to request his aid in dealing with people who’d wronged them, the guards would redirect them off to the side and record their statements so The Commonwealth’s law enforcement apparatus could assist them, but with the government in flux it was a bit difficult to enforce any laws. The police weren’t exactly sure which ones still applied, and as one guard pointed out, at this point Glenn pretty much was the law in The Commonwealth.

As for the Rick worshipers who expected Glenn to have supernatural powers, the guards mostly watched and snickered as Glenn squirmed… as long as no one tried to touch him. Whenever anyone got too close, the guards would quickly move in to make sure he was safe. Glenn was impressed by their professionalism. With all of their equipment, they could’ve done a lot of damage to the people they were guarding him from, but they always managed to use the minimum amount of force necessary to remind people to keep their distance.

In the four days since Clem had left, he hadn’t had a chance to explore the city. Every time he descended to the lobby, he encountered a throng of people waiting for him. He couldn’t just blow them off, making them happy so they’d continue to support Clem was his job now. So, he found himself frequently repeating phrases like “We’ll see what we can do” and “We’ll look into that” when really he had no clue if anything could be done for them at all. He’d only made it out of the lobby twice, and both of those times were when Willy had needed him to break up a stalemate in the city hall, where he felt even more clueless. Each time he was there, all he did was watch Willy for cues and agree with him whenever the situation called for it. He had to hope that Willy knew what he was doing. From what Glenn had seen in Everett, Willy was definitely good at his job, but listening to him talk was never very reassuring. Willy always sounded about as confident as Glenn felt.

On the morning of day five, a messenger pushed his way through the crowd in the lobby and handed a note to one of the guards, who informed Glenn that they’d need to make their way to the courthouse. The guards surrounded Glenn and ordered the crowd out of their way. They escorted him to the parking garage, which had long since been converted into a livery. Glenn mounted an unfamiliar horse that one of the guards had provided him. The guards then mounted, formed up around him, and led him out onto the street. It wasn’t quite the exploring he would’ve liked to have done but at least this way he’d get a better view of the heart of the city than he had from inside Clementine’s carriage.

After they’d travelled a few blocks, Glenn detected a familiar scent. It wasn’t quite the same as the one produced by Clementine’s wound, but it was similar. After a few more whiffs it hit him, this was the putrid smell of death. He started scanning the street for a walker, but all he saw was ordinary people going about their daily routine. A bit of motion high above the street caught his attention. He looked up and spotted the source of the stench. It was indeed a walker, fairly fresh from the looks of it, hanging by the neck from one of the lamp posts. Its hands were tied behind its back and only its jaw was moving. The white coat it was wearing was flapping in the wind and he knew he’d seen before. The doctor who’d examined Clementine in the hospital had been wearing it when last they’d met. The unfortunate fellow knew this would happen, he’d even tried to bargain with Clem to gain her protection but she’d dismissed him. Glenn felt a pang of guilt. He should’ve sought the man out and offered him the sanctuary that Clementine had denied him.

Glenn started scanning the other lamp posts along their route and saw plenty more walkers dangling from them, all appeared to be nearly as fresh as the doctor. He noticed them sporadically at first, but the closer they got to the courthouse the more regularly he saw them, until finally it reached a point where every lamp post was adorned by hanging a corpse.

When they came within view of the courthouse, Glenn could see that once again a crowd had gathered around the statue of Rick, but this time, something was different. A structure had been erected next to the courthouse steps: a gallows. Glenn had a feeling that something very bad was about to happen. A man was speaking at the podium that Clementine had given her speech from. He gestured toward Glenn and announced “Well would you look at that, folks! Our guest of honor has arrived!” The crowd cheered. Glenn wondered how he’d managed to screw up so badly that they wanted to hang him already, then the speaker announced “Lets clear a path for him so he can start dispensing some Grimes family justice!” The crowd cheered even louder. As he dismounted and followed his guards to the steps, he realized what the speaker meant. They expected him to kill someone, maybe even several people. This somehow alarmed him even more than the idea of being the one they wanted to hang. He considered running, but when he looked back, the crowd had closed in behind him, blocking his path back to the horses. There was no escaping this, he had to face it. He recalled the advice that Clem had given him before she left; “Do what feels right to you.“

He climbed the steps, while his guards formed a wall at their base. The man at the podium announced “Boy, do we have a special treat for you. Let’s bring out our next contestant!” A pair of people, dressed in civilian attire, hauled a man out from the courthouse. They each held one of the man’s arms near the shoulder as they dragged him across the stage with his toes scraping along the ground behind them. His face was bruised badly enough that even if Glenn had known this man, he wouldn’t have been able to recognize him. They forced him to stand next to the podium so the crowd could get a good look at him. The speaker gleefully announced “This piece of shit once cornered the market on walker based entertainment. Any of you who couldn’t pay of your debts, which let’s face it was all of us, probably ended up selling your deceased loved ones remains to this festering ass boil just so he could put them in his arena to be torn apart for the amusement of his rich scumbag friends. Oh, and let’s not forget that it’s this douche-nozzle’s fight with Carl Grimes that started the breakup of The Commonwealth. Lets all give a great big Fuck You to Hershel Greene!” The overall sound was a boo, but Glenn could detect a few actual fuck yous mixed in there. When the crowd finished having their fun, the speaker turned to Glenn and asked “Well Glenn, is there anything you want to say to this walking pustule, or are you too eager to get to the part where you pull that lever?”

Glenn was too stunned to think. Both his heart and his mind were racing. He looked around for anyone or anything that could help to get him out of this. He looked at the pitiable man they wanted him to kill, at the crowd baying for blood, at their leader smiling like a kid at Christmas, and all he knew was despair. Then, his eyes landed on the statue of Rick, and a sense of calm overtook him. He knew what he had to do. He pulled out his knife. The speaker beamed. “Whoa-ho-ho, ladies and gentlemen he’s not even going to bother with noose, he’s just gonna do this the old fashioned way. Alright!”

Glenn glared at the man at the podium, then walked over to Hershel and cut the rope that bound his hands together. The crowd booed and Glenn didn’t care. He turned to podium, pulled the microphone from the stand, and growled “This ends, now! We’re all going to live together. It’s what Rick wanted. Not this. You profane his memory, doing this here of all places!” He pointed to the gallows. “Tear that thing down and burn it. Then go cut down all those bodies you’ve been putting up around town and return them to their families so they can be put to rest. I don’t ever want to see anything like this again! Not ever in my life!” Glenn let the microphone fall so that it dangled from the stand by its cord, then put his right arm around Hershel to help him down the steps to where his guards were waiting. The boos grew louder.

A guard, whose voice Glenn recognized from the market, told Glenn “You did the right thing up there. It’s probably going to get us all killed in a moment, but still, it was the right thing.” He then patted Glenn on the shoulder, moved in closer and advised him “You’ll want to switch arms before we get started, so your right hand’s free to draw your weapon.” Glenn did as he’d advised. The guards formed up around Glenn and Hershel, with the guard who’d spoken to Glenn taking the lead position. They held their shields and cudgels at the ready and began to push their way through the crowd toward their horses.

Pushing with their shields and displaying their cudgels was enough to get most members of the crowd step aside, but eventually, they encountered a woman who simply would not budge. She dared the lead guard to strike her, then yelled at Glenn “You never knew him! You don’t know what Rick wanted! He wanted justice!”

With their forward progress halted, they were sitting ducks. An object struck the lead guard, causing him to fall hard to the ground, leaving a clear line of sight between Glenn and the woman. Glenn stepped forward to help the lead guard, which meant dropping Hershel. He couldn’t carry them both. He tried to help the guard to his feet but the big man’s knee had been shattered. Around him he could hear a constant drumming of heavy objects crashing against shields and he knew that each thud meant that more and more strain was being placed on the arms behind those shields. He had to act fast or his guards would be overwhelmed. He locked eyes with the woman who had halted their progress and his right hand dropped to his hip. When his palm felt the cool steel frame of his revolver his heartrate slowed. His perception of time dilated and his world narrowed to the path before him. He wondered if this was what it was like for Rick and Clem? When faced with absolute chaos, rather than being overwhelmed with panic he instead found himself in a state of extreme focus. He looked at the crowd ahead of him and read the resolve on the people’s faces, quickly identifying the five most likely to lead a charge against him after he shot the yelling woman. He could see beyond them that the two guards who’d remained with the horses had each retrieved their battle rifles from their saddles. Once Glenn opened fire, they’d be able to mow down anyone who failed to get out of his way. Killing his way out suddenly seemed so simple… and so wrong.

He released his grip on both the guard and his pistol. His perception of time returned to normal and his heart began to race. He was as scared then as he’d ever been in his life but he couldn’t let it slow him down. He stepped past the injured guard to face the yelling woman. He held his left hand out toward her with his palm up in a manner that suggested he was inviting her to take hold of it and gestured toward Hershel with his right as he asked, “Who is this man to you?”

She yelled back at him “He’s the oligarchy!” She was close enough that Glenn could feel her spittle on his face.

Glenn narrowed it down for her. “No, this man, what did he do to you?” The crowd steadily quieted, as people tried to hear her confront him.

The enraged woman yelled back “They kept us in poverty. I had to watch my mom work like a slave until they drove her to an early grave, and when she died they acted like she was just another piece of garbage!”

Glenn asked “This man, Hershel Greene, he worked your mom to death, is that why he has to die?”

“No, they did!” The woman yelled incredulously.

Glenn asked again “What did this specific man, Hershel Greene, do to you that makes you so determined to end his life?”

The woman looked at him with disbelief. “He broke up The Commonwealth. He’s the reason why you left us, why we didn’t have a Grimes here to put a stop to all of this this.” Unbelievable. There were people who thought that since Rick was gone, another Grimes would’ve simply stepped up to rescue them. This wasn’t the time to set her straight on how ridiculous that bit of magical thinking was or the fact that it was they, the ordinary people of The Commonwealth, who’d just overthrown their oligarchy, not Clementine and certainly not some random member of the Grimes family.

As loud as he could, so the crowd could hear, Glenn replied “Exactly, It’s my family he wronged the most. I’m his connection to this mess, and because of that it’s my duty to get him out of it. You think it was justice that motivated Rick to do all the stuff he did during the trials. Nah, it was duty. Duty to his fellow man. That’s why he spared The Saviors after their defeat, and that’s why I’ll die before I let you kill Hershel Greene. So, are you going to let us pass or is this going to go another way?” The woman paused, then stepped aside. The mob followed suit. Two guards helped their leader up, while one helped Hershel. Glenn took point as they made their way through the crowd.

Glenn was the first to mount his horse, giving him time to survey the scene as the guards helped the injured members of their party onto a pair of horses. The two who’d stayed behind to guard the horses were the last to saddle up. They’d kept their rifles at the ready until the rest of the party was good to go. Seeing them slide their rifles into their saddle holsters left Glenn feeling relieved but also a bit queasy at the thought of the bloodbath that would’ve occurred if he’d followed his instinct and drawn his pistol.

Glenn remained in the lead as they departed. He ordered two guards to take their wounded leader to the hospital, then ordered the rest of the guards to follow him. He led them to the river, then followed it to the airfield. Once there, he saw that Bob’s plane was still in the hangar. He hadn’t arrived yet for his daily flight. Glenn had to hope this didn’t turn out to be the day Bob finally decided to take a break.

After about half an hour, Bob arrived. Glenn began to speak, but Bob cut him off “I know! The whole damn town knows! I figured you’d come here.”

Glenn squeaked “Well, we’ve gotta get him out of here or they’re going to kill him!” His voice finally registered the stress he’d experienced that morning.

Bob grabbed a clipboard from within the cockpit and hastily began his preflight checks. “Get him on board. You too. You left half that mob impressed but the other half is still pissed. It’s gonna take a while for things to cool off and it’d be best if you’re not here while that’s happening.” Bob turned to one of the guards and instructed “Let Willy know what happened, and tell him he’s going to be on his own for a while.”

Glenn’s first thought was of the stuff he was leaving behind in the hotel room, but then he reached into his jacket pocket, verifying that the two pieces of maple were there. They were what really mattered to him, the rest could stay with Willy. He opened the door for Hershel, who had to be lifted into the seat by the guards. Glenn buckled him in, waited to see if he had anything to say, then when he didn’t, moved on to buckle himself into the copilot’s seat.

Bob finished his checks and buckled himself in. He started the engine while saying “I hope this asshole’s worth the trouble.” Glenn rolled his eyes as he thought to himself “not a chance”. Once they were airborne, Bob set their heading to the east.

“What’s the flight plan?” Glenn asked

“That depends on your friend back there. The plan was to make a scouting run over Virginia then drop the film off at Everett on the way back but if your new friend’s not gonna last that long, my guess is the plan’s about to change. So how about it. How are you doing back there?”

Hershel held up his left thumb.

Bob asked “Is there a reason why you haven’t said a word yet?”

Hershel nodded.

Remembering Lee’s description of Louis, Glenn asked “Did they cut out your tongue or something?”

Hershel shook his head.

“Broken jaw?” asked Bob.

Hershel nodded.

“You gonna make it for a long flight?”

Hershel gave a thumbs up.

Bob turned to Glenn. “I guess we’re sticking to the original flight plan. By the way, if he makes a mess in my seat, you’re cleaning it up.” Bob pulled out his clipboard and handed it to Glenn along with a fresh sheet of scratch paper and his charts. He talked Glenn through how to make a variety of calculations, including how much time each leg of their flight would take and how much fuel they’d use. Bob then set his egg timer based on Glenn’s calculations. The timer went off just as they passed over the Shenandoah. Bob just gave Glenn a sideways glance. He didn’t need to say a word to impress upon Glenn that he needed to work on his math.

Glenn eventually spotted a large cluster of buildings to the northeast that he knew had to be DC, which meant they were almost to Alexandria. “Did we miss Jessi?” he asked.

“Nope” Bob replied, and banked south. “She turned south to cut off Jaques. She didn’t want the occupation force in Alexandria to spot her and warn him that she was coming. There she is, at Independent Hill.” He took his usual photo, then flew just a few minutes south before announcing “And there’s Jaques, near Tacketts Mill. Which means AJ shouldn’t be far.” He snapped another picture then flew further south. When he didn’t spot AJ, he turned west. After a few more minutes he proclaimed “There, just outside Morrisville. He’s herding Jaques into the open. Jessi’s probably gonna hit him, tomorrow, maybe even later today.” Bob scanned his chart and pointed “There, somewhere around Kopp or Joplin.” Bob handed Glenn the grease pencil. “I’ll let you do the honors.” He set their heading to the west. “OK, lets get our passenger to Ruby.”

***

Bob opened the door to the clinic, but that was about as much as he was willing to help out. Midway through the orchard Glenn had given up trying to help Hershel walk and just put him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Bob had spent the rest of the trip from the airfield chiding Glenn about how much of a mistake it had been to save him. “Alright, you’re here. I’m off to develop these pics. Good luck explaining this to Clem when you see her.” Bob gave Glenn a terse wave and shut the door behind him as he left.

Glenn put Hershel down in one of the waiting room chairs then held his back and groaned for a moment. The receptionist asked “I suppose this means you’re here for a backache. What’s he her for?”

Glenn turned to confirm she was speaking to him, scanned the waiting room, saw that he and Hershel were the only ones there, and answered “Uh, a broken jaw I think.”

“Yeah, we get a lot of people in here who can’t walk ‘cause of a broken jaw. Looks like you did a number on the rest of him too.”

Realizing that she thought he’d been the one who’d given Hershel the beating, Glenn held up his hands to show her his undamaged knuckles and declared “Wasn’t me.”

Unimpressed, the receptionist continued “Uh-huh, and what’s your relation to the patient?”

Glenn thought for a moment, pondering the word “relation”. His parents usually spoke about Hershel with such bile that they rarely mentioned this part, but they’d brought it up enough times for Glenn to be aware of who Hershel was in relation to him. He looked at Hershel with regret and announced “He’s my uncle.”

Still speaking with zero emotion in her voice the receptionist instructed “OK hon, go ahead and take a seat, someone will be with you soon.”

He went over to Hershel and let him know “I’ve got someone else in here I need to see. They’ll take good care of you. I’ll catch up with you later, maybe we can talk about something other than the rift.” He gave Herschel a weak smile. “I’d like to hear more about what grandma Maggie was like. Maybe we can talk about her. Until then…” He waved and headed down the hall toward the stairs.

Once on the second floor he headed to room six. There he found Corrina Allen sitting at a small table by an open window. She was wearing ordinary civilian clothes rather than the hospital gown he’d seen her in the last time he’d been there; woolen pants, a long sleeve flannel shirt, and leather boots. Her left hand no longer sported the bulky gauze bandage that had bound her three middle fingers together before, it had been replaced by three smaller moleskin dressings. Her face, however, was still mostly covered in gauze and she had the right sleeve of her shirt rolled and pinned below her stump. Without looking up from the book she was reading, she asked “May I help you, sir?”

Glenn pulled the unfinished wooden nose from his pocket. “I wanted to ask you about this. It’s eventually supposed to be a nose. I finished carving the outside but I have no clue how you’ll want to attach it, so I left the rest of it alone. Any ideas?”

She gazed out the window as she answered “You brought me a nose? I thought you were tasked to build me an arm and to convince my family to see me.” After all the effort he’d put into crafting it for her, she wouldn’t even bother to look at it. She flipped her book over and laid it open on the table so she wouldn’t lose her page. Glenn got a brief glimpse of the cover as she flipped it but only caught part of the title; the words “indirect fire”. He thought it was odd that someone with such extensive burn injuries would be interested in reading about anything fire related.

Corrina gestured toward the window and explained “Sound travels, Mr. Grimes. I heard your conversation with Ruby.” She turned to face him and her voice registered a small amount of outrage. “I’m well aware that I’ve lost an arm and an eye. What I need the two of you to understand is that I haven’t lost my mind.” She held up her index finger. “I don’t shoot with this.” She tapped the orbit next to her left eye. “Nor with this.” She then tapped the crown of her head. “At the distances where I operate, I shoot with this. I don’t need two eyes to calculate a ballistic arc, and I don’t need two arms to line up the shot. I’ll admit that these injuries are going to slow me down, but they will not stop me!” She held out her hand toward Glenn. “Now, let’s see this nose.”

Glenn handed it over to her so she could examine it. After glancing at it for a moment she handed it back to him. Unimpressed, she commented “O… K… It looks like a nose. I don’t know how to attach it either. I don’t really know what’s going on under these bandages myself. I’ve only seen a mirror once since I’ve been here. You should probably ask Ruby.” She paused, causing Glenn to think she was done. Feeling dejected he turned to leave but stopped when she resumed speaking. “My family has started visiting again. So, thank you for that.” A hint of hostility entered her voice. “They also told me about your little visit. You scared the hell out of them. So, fuck you for that.”

Glenn cringed, the kind of full body cringe that she would’ve definitely noticed even though he had his back to her. Reluctantly he turned to face her. “Sorry, I was just trying to help.”

“I don’t need that kind of help.” She dropped her hostile tone and Glenn was surprised to find that a sly smile had crept onto her face. “But here’s something you can help me with. I need to climb. It’s just how I deal with things. Clem once told me that losing her leg left her feeling trapped. I now know how she felt. When you make that arm, make it one I can climb with. If you can pull that off I’ll consider forgiving you for spooking my family.”

Feeling like he’d received a reprieve, Glenn replied “I’ll see what I can do” and saw himself out. He set off to find Clementine so he could break the news to her about what’d transpired in The Commonwealth that morning. Heeding the advice he’d previously received from Jessi, he first checked the library, where he was informed by a staff member that Clem was in her office. He wasn’t exactly sure which one was hers until he heard her voice coming through one of the doors. He could also hear that Bob was in there with her, so he found a nearby bench and sat down to wait until they were finished. When the door opened, Glenn sprung up and scooted to the doorway. He peered around the doorframe to see how busy Clem was before intruding on her time, which elicited an annoyed “Just go in” from Bob as he walked away.

Clem looked up from the photos Bob had left on her desk and invited Glenn to “Come on in. Just be sure to close the door behind you.” He sat down in one of the chairs opposite the desk. Clem’s office had a window with a view of the north side of the town. The chairs in her office had been positioned so that her guests could enjoy the view while she sat at her desk with her back to it. Glenn also noticed that her office had doors on each side of it in addition to the one he’d entered through, giving her direct access to the neighboring rooms. Glenn assumed that those rooms must be for her personal staff. Non-plus, Clem asked “So, Bob tells me you had yourself a hero moment this morning?”

Glenn felt his chest tighten. “I can explain…”

Clem gently shook her head while smiling and rolling her eyes. “What’s there to explain? I told you to do the right thing and you did. You found a way to stop the bloodshed and you probably did it the way Rick would’ve. It’ll take time for what you told them to sink in but it should work.”

Glenn looked down “I don’t feel like a hero. I just feel like the idiot who got someone hurt.”

Clem gave him a half smile “Welcome to my world.”

Still looking down at her desk, Glenn asked “The lead guard, the one who got hurt. This isn’t the first time he’s been there for me. You’re in charge of The Commonwealth now, right? Does that mean you can promote him?”

In what sounded an awful lot like her teacher’s voice, Clementine replied “I can. Do you want me to give him a medal too?”

Glenn looked her in the eye and spoke with as humble a tone as he could muster. “No medal. I doubt he’ll even want the promotion. It’s just… He showed me his character. Selfless, even when he thought he was anonymous. That tells me he’s the real deal. People like that are rare. When you find them you don’t want to pass ‘em up.”

Clem nodded. “Chief of Investigative Services it is, whether he wants it or not. Thanks for the tip. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some investigating of my own to do. Blue Ridge has gone silent and we’ve been trying to figure out what happened.” Not wanting to intrude any further on her time, Glenn exited her office, despite wondering what she meant about Blue Ridge going silent.

Glenn set off into the town square looking for any familiar face he could find who might be able to give him some insight into what was going on. He didn’t have to go very far before he spotted Omar’s son, Talib, and his younger daughter, Hana. They were browsing through the offerings of a spice merchant. Glenn had seen them around the inn but hadn’t really had a chance to get to know them. He knew that Nida pretty much ran the inn at this point, and he thought he heard that Talib was in charge of the cider works, but he wasn’t quite sure what Hana’s role was in Omar’s businesses. He approached and asked “Excuse me, are you Talib and Hana?”

Talib turned to face him and warmly answered “Yes, and you’re… Glenn right? I’ve seen you at the inn. Need a hand with something?”

Not wanting to alarm anyone, Glenn tried to keep his questions vague. “Could you tell me what Blue Ridge is?”

Talib answered “It’s the southernmost city in the Appalachian Union. Why do you ask?”

As if on cue, Glenn heard the engine. He looked up and spotted Bob heading south. When Glenn looked back down at Talib, he could see behind him that Hana was also looking at the sky. She’d clearly spotted the plane as her eyes were following its flight path. Still hoping to avoid alarming them, Glenn ignored Talib’s question and asked “By air, how far away is Blue Ridge?”

This time Hana answered. “Straight line on a map, I’d call it three hundred miles, but that’s a very rough estimate.” She stopped watching the plane and locked eyes with Glenn. “How fast does that thing go?”

“The airspeed indicator went up to one-eighty but the fastest I ever saw it go was one-twenty.”

She sucked some air between her teeth. “If he’s trying to make it there by nightfall, this is going to be close.” She cocked her head and gave Glenn a look that let him know it was time to start giving them some real answers. “If he’s heading to Blue Ridge that means something’s up. What’s this all about?”

Glenn came clean. “Clem said Blue Ridge has gone silent. I have no clue what that means but the way she said it, I figured it was a big deal.”

Talib ran his hand through his hair. “It means something bad’s happened. We might lose contact for a little while sometimes, like if there’s a storm or a problem with the radio or something like that, but if this has gone all the way up to Clementine then that means it’s been going on for a while.”

Hana shushed her brother “We don’t know that. They sent… that flying thingy to find out what’s going on. Let’s not panic until we find out if there’s something worth panicking over. Until then, we should keep this to ourselves, OK?” Glenn and Talib nodded in agreement.

The siblings resumed their shopping while Glenn departed the town square. He made his way to the prosthetics workshop and proceeded to look through the manuals for an arm Corrina could use to climb with. He lost himself in the books until he heard the sound of an engine overhead. He had no idea how much time had passed. He put the books away and headed south to try to catch Bob and find out what’d happened. Glenn found him at the gate, issuing orders to the guards, who looked like they were taking him very seriously. When Bob saw Glenn, he walked up to him, grabbed him by the arm, and turned him around declaring “We’re heading to the fort. I’ve got the guards working on dragging the council out of bed. This is big. You go on ahead and let them know that Blue Ridge is in flames. The attackers were moving northeast so they’ll want to get on the radio and warn Junaluska. I’ll catch up in a bit, I need to develop these pictures first.”

When Bob released his arm, Glenn didn’t pause to think, he just took off running. When he got to the admin building he found that Aasim was the only member of the town’s leadership who was already there. He hadn’t received the call to come in, he just hadn’t gone home for the night yet. Glenn relayed Bob’s message to him, which prompted Aasim to call the radio room to get them to send a warning to Junaluska.

The other leaders trickled in. Many appeared to be wearing coats over their bed clothes. Clementine, for her part, arrived in her usual wool and buckskin attire, just without her leg. She hobbled in on crutches, followed a moment later by a guard who’d carried her wheelchair up the stairs for her. As she sat down, Glenn noticed one other thing that was missing. The pistol he’d grown used to seeing her carry on her right hip was gone, and it was easy to see why. Whoever had built her wheelchair had made it too narrow for her to sit in while carrying her weapon in its usual position.

Aasim took over explaining the situation to the new arrivals until Bob burst in with the photographs. He spread them over the desk and explained what he’d seen, then the hunt for clues began. They scoured the photographs, trying to gather as much information as they could from them. In particular they wanted to know who it was that they now found themselves up against. After about an hour a call came through saying that Clementine was needed urgently in the radio room. In no time she was up, on her crutches, and heading toward the door. She asked Glenn bring her wheelchair. He assumed she meant for him to follow her to the radio room. Once they were outside she stopped to get into the chair, then wheeled herself along the path around the administrative building. Glenn found that he had to jog to keep up with her. She led Glenn to the building adjacent to the bell tower, where they found Lee holding the door for them. Clem didn’t even slow down as she passed through the door and made a beeline for one of the rooms within the building.

When Glenn arrived at the room he’d seen her enter, he found a silver haired woman sitting at a desk with a simple looking electronic device and three books resting on it. For some reason he’d expected the radio room to have a bit more equipment in it. The device had some wires attached to it that led to the wall that separated the radio room from the tower. He assumed the wires continued up the tower to an antenna that’d probably mounted at the top. A large map of the United States had been mounted on the wall opposite the desk so the operator could see it while using the radio. Several pins had been placed in the map, with the majority of them being placed near Cincinnati. Remembering what Aasim had said about Clementine focusing the efforts of her spy network on The Commonwealth, Glenn assumed the pins marked the locations of her operatives. When he checked Alexandria, he saw that three pins had been placed there.

“It’s Valerie Ubaste” the woman told Clem. “She heard our call to Junaluska. She asked to speak to you.”

The woman moved so that Clementine could sit by the Radio. Before touching the controls, and with a tone of resignation, Clem instructed “Alice, get Lee out of here. He doesn’t need to hear this.”

Somehow this was the first time Glenn had met Alice. She wasn’t what he’d expected, given what he’d heard about the hard life she’d lived. He thought she’d be bitter, but instead she exuded serenity and wore the permanent smile of someone who could find the silver lining in any situation. “He already knows, Clem. Val’s been talking up a storm while we’ve been waiting. She’s told us all sorts of things, including what she plans to do with him.”

Clem looked up at the ceiling and uttered “Fuck!” Then reached out to her grandson. When he took her hand, she pulled him close and gave him a hug, reassuring him “I’m not going to let her take you. No matter what.”

Lee pulled back from the embrace so he could look her in the eye. He countered “Sacrifices have to be made, grandma. You keep treating me like I’m the king in this match, I’m not, I’m just another pawn, and pawns get sacrificed. We just lost a city! If Valerie can stop them before we lose another one, then we have to take her deal.”

Clementine pulled him back and held him tightly. Her distress could be heard in her voice as she explained “You are why I’m doing all of this. I became queen so I could leave you a kingdom. If I lose you, I lose everything. If that doesn’t make you king, I don’t know what does.” Clem kissed him on the forehead and added “But life isn’t chess, honey. I don’t intend to sacrifice anyone if I don’t have to, and even if I did, it would never be you.” If all that Valerie was doing was probing Clem, trying to figure out where she was vulnerable, she’d found it.

Clem keyed the mic. “Valerie, are you there?” As they waited for a reply, Clementine noticed the books that Alice had left sitting on the desk. One of them sported odd looking writing, with letters that looked sort of like English but not quite, like the writing Glenn had seen printed on Jessi’s armor. Another was labeled “Arvo’s Diary”. Alice had been in the process of translating the diary into English. Clem held up the English version and asked “Seriously?”

Alice countered with a question of her own. “Do you know how hard it is to find anything in Cyrillic around here?”

Before Clem could comment further about Alice’s latest hobby, Valerie answered her hail. “Well, if it isn’t the queen herself. I’d know that voice anywhere. You may not remember me, but we’ve met before. I don’t suppose you by-any-chance recall our last encounter, do ya?”

Looking disturbed, Clem hesitantly answered “No, I don’t remember you.”

The voice replied “I’m not surprised. You must meet a lot of people, I can’t expect you to remember all of us. Say, I couldn’t help but notice you’re having a little problem with a few of your towns. It looks like The Provident must’ve gotten tired of waiting for me to make a decision and found themselves someone else to bargain with. Now, It just so happens that I have the majority of my army twiddling their thumbs up in Greensboro, waiting to hear if you need my help in Virginia, but we can head west instead if you decide you want to change your mind about my little proposal. I can be in Havendale in five days. I hear they have a pretty little chapel there. Sounds like a nice place for us to meet up and have our families forever joined in holy matrimony. Once we’re done with that little formality, I can send my army on south to reinforce your city. After the warning you sent them, I’m sure Junaluska can hold out ‘til we get there, and if your war with The Provident is as close to done as you told Glenn it is, well then they shouldn’t have to put up with us for too long before AJ and your Rangers come charging in to save the day. So, wha’d’ya say, if I start marching my troops toward Havendale come sunrise, can we expect to find Lee waiting for Phoebe at the altar when we get there?”

Clementine glared at the microphone with such hate that Glenn almost expected it to melt. She keyed it up and informed Valerie “Lee won’t be there. I will. That leaves us with the question of who in your family I’ll be marrying.”

After a brief pause, Valerie replied “The point of this marriage is to link our families in perpetuity, by blood. Now that’s not gonna happen if there’s no kids, which we both know you’re too old to have. Look, I get it if you don’t want to send Lee, but there’s another alternative. Just have AJ kick that wife of his to the curb and high tail his ass to Havendale. Phoebe’s mom, my daughter Thecla, she’s recently single on account of her dear sweet husband passing from a fatal case of welching-on-his-gambling-debts. Mind you, she’s still a bit sore at me over that, but she’ll still marry AJ if I tell her to.”

Glenn didn’t think it was possible, but Clem’s glare became even more intense. He felt his heart stop for a moment when she turned that glare toward him and in a low growl muttered “I’m not that old...” After a moment her glare transitioned to a wry smile. She keyed the mic and offered “I’ll marry Thecla and adopt Phoebe. AJ’s adopted, so Phoebe will be as legitimate as he is.”

Her proposal was met by a moment of silence. Eventually Valerie answered “Why my darlin’ Clementine, I forgot you swung that way. Alright, seeing as that sort of marriage is legal on your side of the border, we can do things your way. But let’s not forget about the matter of my insurance policy. I’ll still be needing someone dear to you to come and stay with me until I’m satisfied our union is permanent, and since there will be no child to link us by blood, chances are they’ll be here for a very a long time.”

Clementine closed her eyes and winced, then lowered her head to the desk while Lee muttered “She still wants a hostage?”

Valerie’s voice came over the radio again. “I want Omar.”

Clem uttered “Shit” then raised her head and keyed the mic. “I’ll run this by him, but we run our nations a little differently, you and I. If he says no, it’s no. So, you may want to come up with a list of alternates for me to ask until someone says yes.” She keyed off the mic and turned to Lee “Go get Omar. Let him know what’s going on. And remember, pace yourself, don’t try to sprint the whole way.” Lee took off out the door, sprinting.

Valerie’s voice came over the radio again. “Remember when I’d said I met you before. Well, I met him too. We both know he’ll say yes. He’s not the sort to turn someone down when they’re in need, and right now whole cities are depending on him.” Clem looked at Glenn and then Alice. Neither had to say a word. All three of them knew that Valerie was right. Valerie continued “But, just in case Omar gets cold feet, why don’t you bring that Grimes boy with you. I know that puissant doesn’t have the spine to say no to either one of us.”

Glenn winced. The mic wasn’t keyed but he uttered “I’m right here…” anyway.

Alice reached over and patted Glenn’s hand. “Saying that about you just tells us that she’s not up to date on what’s been going on in The Commonwealth.”

Valerie concluded “So it’s set. I’ll see you in Havendale. You’ll be marrying Thecla and adopting all eight of her kids, not just Phoebe. And with Omar in my kitchen, I’ll be eating good for a long time to come. Oh, and don’t worry about the dress, honey. I understand this is short notice. It’s OK if you show up in something informal. I won’t be offended. Ta!”

Glenn studied the map. He found Blue Ridge, Junaluska, Greensboro, and Joplin, but Havendale didn’t appear on the map so he made a rough approximation based on where Bob had made his marks on his aeronautical chart. At a pace of thirty miles per day it would take the attackers roughly three days to reach Junaluska, while Valerie would take at least nine days to get there and AJ would take about sixteen. Glenn had to hope that the mountainous terrain would give the Appalachian defenders as much of an advantage as Lee thought it would, because otherwise Junaluska didn’t have a chance. Most of their fighters were away in Virginia with Jessi’s Volunteer force.

While Glenn’s attention had shifted toward the map, Clementine remained motionless, continuing to glare at the radio as though it would relay her hate to Valerie as efficiently as it had relayed her voice. She didn’t move until Alice asked “So, do you still have the dress you married Louis in?”

Clementine’s glare was replaced by a look of umbrage. “Yes I still have it but I’m not going to wear it for them! I loved Louis! This… this isn’t a wedding, it’s politics, it’s little more than a business transaction. If I had something corporate, I’d be wearing it, because that’s the sort of affair this is gonna be…” She calmed down and with a hint of embarrassment added “Besides, I don’t think that I can fit in that dress anymore… and I was freezing when I wore it, I couldn’t wear my layers underneath it.” She tugged at the wool sweater she was wearing under her coat. “I’m going to be stuck in a wheelchair anyway. I’ll just wear this with a lap blanket. At least I’ll be warm.”

Coyly, Alice followed up with “I suppose that means I shouldn’t even ask about the dress you married Violet in?”

Initially Clem looked befuddled, then realized that Alice was just trying to lighten the mood, so she answered. “There wasn’t one actually. I didn’t even have a leg back then, if that tells you how long ago it was. All I had was crutches.” She tapped the arms of her wheelchair. “Willy hadn’t finished this yet. I just wore my usual denim. Even if I had a dress, I wouldn’t’ve known to wear it. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Violet woke me up before sunrise, said she had something to show me. She had me follow her deep into the woods, which let-me-tell-you wasn’t an easy thing for me to do back then. She brought me to a place she’d picked out where there was a bit of a clearing on the ground but the canopy was still thick overhead. Once we were there, she just asked me to sit down at one end of the clearing and wait. When the sun rose, the light shining through the canopy formed shafts through the dawn’s mist.” Clem’s eyes became distant and a sorrowful smile crept onto her face. “It made her so happy. She stood out there in the middle of it and told me ‘This is God’s cathedral. He made all of this out of light and life, just for us.’" Clementine blushed. "I didn't quite give her the reaction she was hoping for... but still, she asked me to marry her, right then and there. We made up our vows on the spot, and that was it, we were married.”

Alice smiled and raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean 'not the reaction she was hoping for'?”

Clem shook her head. “I kinda laughed... well, I thought it was corny. She said it had something to do with the church she and her grandma used to go to, like that was the name of it or something. Anyway, that spot became our spot. She made sure that when the town expanded, a church got built there. It was our first one. Now, I think of her whenever I see it.”

Alice looked down, then back up at Clem and gave her a consolatory “I’m sorry,” 

Clem sighed and told Glenn “C’mon. If we leave now we might be able to catch Omar and Lee half way.”

They met up with Lee and Omar at the south end of the park. As expected, Omar had said yes. He had the look of a man who was being led to his execution. His only request was to be given some time before they left in the morning so he could put his affairs in order. Specifically, he wanted to say goodbye to his kids and to leave them with some parting advice about running the businesses he’d built. He also wanted to visit his wife’s grave so he could say a final goodbye to her. Considering all that he was giving up, no one was about to quibble with him over time.

They returned to their respective beds to get what little sleep they could. At dawn, Glenn went with Bob to prepare the plane. As they approached the south gate Glenn noticed something new, a flagpole had been installed atop the gatehouse. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all if his eye hadn’t been caught by the motion of the new flag being raised. He stopped to examine it. The flag consisted of a blue field, bisected by a white rhombus. Inside the rhombus stood a blue dragon, positioned in the center facing the hoist, armed and segreant, wearing an ivy patterned grey crown atop its head. Clementine had based her flag on her father’s hat, only she’d used the image of a dragon on the flag instead of the letter D.

When Glenn caught up with Bob, he’d already begun his preflight checks. It wasn’t long before Lee, Alice, Ruby, and Clementine, arrived together. After a brief power struggle between pilot and queen, it was decided the Clementine would sit up front rather than Bob’s usual copilot. Glenn would have to spend this trip in the rear seat. Once Clem was on board they disassembled her wheelchair and stowed the parts in the small cargo compartment under the plane. While they waited for Omar’s arrival, Ruby presented Glenn with Clementine’s dressing supplies and gave him instructions on how to clean and pack the wound, leading Glenn to the horrifying realization that there wasn’t enough seats on the plane for Ruby to come with them, so she expected him to be the one to perform Clem’s dressing changes while they were in Havendale.

After nearly two hours of waiting, Clem announced that she needed to use the facilities… and that she’d forgotten to bring her crutches, which led to a frantic reassembly of her wheelchair along with a long run home by Lee to retrieve her crutches. After another two hours of waiting, during which Bob began to incessantly ask “are we there yet”, Omar finally arrived. He was accompanied by Hana, who seemed to be as excited about seeing the plane up close as Glenn had been in Havendale. Belongings were stowed and goodbyes were exchanged. Once all of the passengers were safely on board, Bob took off headed toward Virginia. He’d planned to make his usual scouting run before dropping them off at Havendale.

It was midafternoon by the time they arrived over the battlefield and the battle was long since over. A quick radio check confirmed that the victors they saw below them were indeed The Appalachians, not The Provident. After snapping a few photos, Bob landed his bush plane on a road adjacent to Independent Hill. It was a short walk from the road to Jessi’s field headquarters, where AJ and his Rangers had linked up with her. Glenn had expected to find a celebration, but instead he found Jessi and AJ having a discussion over a map table while Rangers and Volunteers moved frantically around them. Somehow AJ managed to notice their approach amid the flurry of activity. He exclaimed “Clem, you’re here!” and rushed over to give her a hug that lifted her out of her wheelchair. His joy at seeing her only seemed to briefly alieve his heavy heart. Looking at the table where AJ had been standing a moment earlier, Glenn could see a considerable number of small steel disks, each with writing etched on them. Most were in a disorganized pile, while some had been set into neatly aligned stacks.

Glenn pointed at the discs and asked “Is that how many Rangers you lost?”

AJ looked back at where Glenn was pointing then answered “No, we didn’t lose any Rangers today. Those are from the Provs.” His grim demeanor hadn’t been a result of the loss of his own people, it was the fate of his enemy that had left him so miserable. He’d built his reputation by bringing those who preyed on the vulnerable to justice, but his life’s work had clearly brought him no joy.

Without looking up from her task, Jessi bitterly added “I wish the Volunteers could say the same.” She then called out “Bob, did you bring your camera?”

“It’s on the plane.” Bob answered.

“Then you’re spending the night.” She ordered. “We have a photo shoot to do in the morning, both air and ground. Omar, mess tents over there. Glenn, we need pikes. We’ve got Volunteers gathering wood. I want you to get to work shaping ‘em.” This didn’t sound like the usual, affable, Jessi he’d grown used to. Neither Glenn nor Omar had ever witnessed this side of her before. She was shaking, but not from fear or chill. She was still amped for a fight, full of adrenaline but with no one left to thrash. She was caked head to toe in mud and blood. Looking over her shoulder at the rifle she had slung across her back, Glenn could see that the stock had been shattered and what appeared to be shreds of flesh were imbedded between the splinters. He peered at the table in front of her and counted seven small bloody scraps of cloth, the same size as the ones she’d woven into her braid… trophies, from her kills. When they hesitated to follow her orders she snapped at them “Go on, git… on the riki-tik… move!” They both made a hasty departure.

Glenn worked through the night, shaping branches into posts and passing them off to Volunteers. He estimated that the crew he worked with had made well over a thousand by the time they were done and they weren’t the only ones working late. All night long he could hear the sound of hammering consistent with posts being driven into the ground.

When the sun rose, he got a glimpse of the project they’d been working so frantically to complete. Before him spanned a field covered in row after row of heads mounted on pikes. Beyond the rows of heads, several pyramidal piles of bodies could be seen. His father had told Glenn a story about a demented enemy of Rick’s who’d done something similar. Carl had witnessed a vast number of atrocities during his days, but Alpha’s had stood out in his mind as the worst, and she’d only displayed a dozen heads this way. Now, Glenn had taken part in an act involving a hundred times that number. The thought of Carl’s reaction to what he’d done caused Glenn’s knees to buckle and he fell awkwardly to seated position on the ground. He watched as distant Volunteers poured accelerant over the piles of bodies and Jessi made her way to the near end of the field.

Glenn felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Omar. “We have to go. When this starts, Bob’s going to have to take off in a hurry.” He helped Glenn to his feet. Glenn continued to watch the spectacle in the field as they made their way to the plane. He could see Jessi and Bob working out the best camera angle and the best pose for her to be in when he snapped his shots. She’d make a grisly visage on her own, considering she hadn’t bothered to clean off the gore she’d accumulated during the previous day’s battle, but the thought of an image of her in that state with a field of heads positioned behind her seemed downright macabre.

When they got to the Plane, Clem was already on board. AJ was loading her wheelchair into the storage compartment while saying his farewells. Seeing the look on Glenn’s face, AJ explained “I know, I don’t like it either. Jessi’s calling it psy-ops. I think it’s just another one of her excuses to act like a sociopath. I love her, but stuff like this makes me seriously worry about her. I suppose this is a trauma thing. Raiders did that with her dad’s head so she’s been doing it to them ever since. I thought if I went along with it she’d eventually get over it, but now I know that’s never gonna happen.” He finished loading the wheelchair then gestured toward the field. “She’s going to have Bob make thousands of copies of this photo they’re taking, with the caption ‘Your head here’, and drop them over The Gulf’s camps. She thinks it’ll freak them out and buy us some time if they think they’re up against a bunch of savages.”

Glenn pointed at the field. “What do you mean ‘think’? Can you honestly look at that and tell me we aren’t a bunch of savages.”

Clem chimed in “If it will prevent another battle, then it’s worth it. Look at how many people died here, Glenn. If it means we won’t have to go through that again, then let people call us savages. Lives are worth more than our pride. If having someone hate or fear me means that they’ll get to live another day, then I’m OK with it. Now C’mon, strap yourself in before Bob gets here.” With a tone of annoyance, she added “I’ve got something far more humiliating than being called a savage to get to.”

Glenn boarded the plane while quietly muttering “suddenly life matters to you?” as he strapped himself in. He didn’t mean for her to hear it, but she did.

“What was that?” She snapped at him.

She’d heard him, he may as well go all in. “You didn’t seem to care so much about lives back in Johnstown, when you let your own people drown, or when you executed that man under the statue of Lee. Yeah, I saw that.”

Clearly irritated, she sternly explained “Killing a few to save many is a part of survival. Those people were leaders, leaders capable of influencing thousands of people but who couldn’t see past their own narrow interests. If they’d lived they would’ve drawn countless Appalachians into a conflict against me, and divided we wouldn’t have had a chance in this war.”

“What about that girl, the one on the rooftop? Was she a leader?”

Clementine fished for a moment between the layers she wore under her sweater. She appeared to be searching for a pocket in her undershirt. She pulled out a small metal disk and angrily threw it at Glenn. It bounced off of his chest and landed on the floor of the cockpit. As he bent over to pick it up, she told him. “Her name was Elaine. She’s the sort of person whose life we’re trying to save with this stunt.” Clementine’s face became flush as she fought to hold back a tide of emotion. “I didn’t want her adoration, I wanted her to get the fuck out of there. If I could’ve scared her off I would’ve, but that wasn’t an option back then.” She gestured toward the field of heads. “Now it is.”

Glenn picked up the disc and saw that the name Elaine Rangiferini had been inscribed on it. He opened his mouth to speak but Clem cut him off by saying “I picked it up while you were sleeping. I decided I wanted to find her family someday. To let them know what’d happened to her. I kinda needed to know what her name was to do that. You’re welcome to come with me when I find them. When we talk to them, feel free to excoriate me all you want, I guarantee you it won’t be anywhere near as bad as what I’ll have to say about me.”

Glenn held out the disc out to give it back to her. “I might just take you up on that offer.”

Clementine held up her hand. “Keep it. Maybe she won’t pay me so many visits if I’m not carrying it around anymore.”

A series of shouted commands drew their attention back to the field. They watched through the plane’s windows as the piles of bodies were set alight, backlighting Jessi and the field of heads. Bob took his initial series of photographs then ran to board the plane. Once airborne, he took several more pictures of the field from different altitudes and different angles before setting their heading toward Havendale.

They arrived several days before Valerie and her army. After dropping Clem, Omar, and Glenn off, Bob departed for The Commonwealth, citing a need to perform maintenance on his plane before carrying out Jessi’s mission. As he put it, if he was going to be kicking a hornet’s nest, he didn’t want to find himself having to make an emergency landing in the middle of the swarm. Glenn spent the days leading up to the wedding making a few alterations to the chapel so it would be more wheelchair friendly. In particular, he added a ramp up the steps to the chancel. When he wasn’t working on the chapel, he explored the old world tech that was still in use in town. He loved the wind generators and wished he could find someone who knew how to work fiberglass the way they did in the old world, so they could teach him how to make things as light and strong as those turbines. Omar readied his list of ingredients for the reception meal he was planning to prepare, while Clementine just seemed to explore every nook and cranny of the town that she could find, almost like she was still expecting to find walkers hiding out somewhere. It made for an odd sight, considering she was constantly being followed by a cadre of Havendale’s constables who were acting as her bodyguards while she was there.

The locals seemed uneasy about Valerie’s arrival. They knew she’d be coming with an army but the reality of it didn’t sink in until they actually saw them march into town. She showed up late in the evening, which led to an impromptu planning session. After a brief discussion, during which Clem made an unsuccessful attempt to convince Valerie to forgo a ceremony and just have them sign a marriage contract so her army could be deployed at dawn, it was decided that the ceremony would be performed at ten in the morning, much to Clementine’s annoyance. The bulk of Valerie’s forces made camp outside of town while a select few, including her family, her personal guards, and the priest from her home church, stayed in town. It was her own priest, Father Paschal, who she planned to have officiate the wedding.

A prominent local family had been kind enough to host Clem, Omar, and Glenn in one of the enclave’s original houses during the lead up to the wedding. It had become their nightly routine for Glenn to assist Clem with her dressing change before heading off to the room that he shared with Omar. The process mostly involved Glenn passing Clem supplies while she did all the work, after which he’d take the used bandages to be washed and boiled in an iodine solution so they could be reused later on. It had gotten to the point where there wasn’t much for him to clean off of them, since the wound was nearly closed and had almost stopped producing drainage.

It was during her dressing change that they received a knock on the door. Their host had brought another guest, a member of Valerie’s party, to meet with them. She looked around furtively before stepping inside and pulling back her hood. “I take it you’re Clementine?” She asked. “I’m Thecla. I thought we should meet at least once before we’re wed.” Upon seeing her face it was clear that she was Valerie’s daughter, the resemblance was unmistakable, but her genteel presentation made it hard to believe that Valerie had raised her.

Clementine leaned back in her chair, made a two handed gesture toward herself and answered “The one and only.” She then amicably asked “What can I do for ya?”

Sounding forlorn, Thecla replied “I just wanted to see who my mother was giving me away to, on my last night of freedom.”

Clementine slumped. “Look it’s not like that…”

Her resentment growing in her voice, Thecla continued. “How does this work, exactly? I mean, I’ve never even met one of your kind before.”

Clementine’s eyes bulged and her right hand crept toward her hip. “My kind? Care to elaborate on what you mean by that?”

Thecla’s eyes narrowed with contempt. “The sickness that pervades your heart, that caused you to steal me away from my home, it isn’t tolerated in my mother’s lands. The fact that she thinks she has no choice but to hand me over to someone like you speaks volumes about what you must be capable of.”

With a confused look on her face, Clementine smoothly slid her hand from her weaponless hip to one of her coat pockets, as though that’d been her intent all along. She pulled out a small jar of pills and showed them to Thecla. “It’s just an infected wound on my stump. I’m taking these to treat it. I’ve had worse, believe me, much worse. As bad as this has been, it’s not even close to how sick I felt after getting bit.”

The malice now unmistakable in her voice, Thecla proclaimed “For a woman to lay with a woman as she would a man is illegal where I’m from. Abominations such as yourself are sent to a mine in chains to work until you die, so that no decent person must ever again be afflicted by your presence. How a just God could allow someone like you to rise to such a position of power is beyond my comprehension.”

Clementine’s gaze shifted to the pistol Glenn was carrying. He took a step back so it would be outside of her reach, prompting Clementine to shake her head and ask him “What did I ever do to you?” She then looked back at Thecla and in a tone of forced patience answered “Here’s how this is going to work. Tomorrow, you and I are going to go to that church and go through the motions. We’re going to treat this like the political marriage that it is. Nothing more. I’ll find you a nice house in Everett, as far from mine as I can, where you can raise your kids in peace and I’ll hopefully never have to see you again. Then maybe someday, when sanity’s been restored, we can ship you back to Santee and I can get my friend back.”

An incredulous Thecla countered “After all you’ve done to make this happen, you expect me to believe you’d just let me go?”

Clementine seemed baffled by what she was hearing. “I didn’t want this. All I wanted was help getting rid of The Provident. It was your mom who wanted this medieval shit. I would’ve been happy with a mutual protection pact. What the hell has she been telling you?”

Puzzled by Clementine’s denial, Thecla explained “She told me you meant to invade us. That the spoils from your war against The Provident have made you too powerful for us to resist and that the only way to placate your bloodlust was to surrender control of our army so you could use our soldiers as fodder for your next war. And as if complete subjugation wasn’t humiliating enough, she said that you demanded she make a personal act of contrition, that she hand over the daughter you’d seen her travelling with when she came to Everett, me.”

Clem looked shocked. “What the…? Look, if I was making all these demands and pushing her around so much, why would I be giving her a hostage?”

“What hostage?”

“Omar!”

“You mean the governor you’re sending to oversee us?”

Clementine raised her hand to her face. “Oh my god your mom’s a nightmare. Look, the Rangers are on their way. They’re about a week behind us. I just need to keep your mom happy until they arrive. After that we won’t have to hear from each other ever again. I’m not the one who came up with this crazy scheme, she is. So, if you don’t want to do this you don’t have to, and if you want me to, I’ll say that in front of witnesses tomorrow. When we get to that church you can say ‘no’ in front of everyone and we can all go our separate ways. We’re on my side of the border now, so no one’s going to make you do anything that you don’t want to. Just know that if you do say no, and your mom takes her army back to Santee because of it, one of my cities will burn. Six thousand people, innocent civilians, will die because you didn’t want to spend a few days pretending to be my wife. Now, I don’t want to do this anymore than you do. Hell, after getting to meet you, I’m now probably even more against this than you are. I’m only going through with this farce because I can’t see any other way to save that city. I came here to do what has to be done because I know those people need me. So, if you decide you can’t go through with it, well then I hope you can live with yourself knowing that you could’ve saved those people but didn’t.”

Thecla just stood there looking perplexed, so Clementine suggested “Here’s where you storm off to confront your mom about all the lies she’s been telling you.”

Thecla turned, then hesitated as though she had something else to say but ultimately said nothing and walked away.

Glenn shut the door and gave Clem a look of astonishment. “So, um, that was weird.”

Clem nodded. “Yes it was.”

Glenn’s look of astonishment transitioned to one of worry. “Is this beginning to feel like a trap to you, because I’m new to all of this and don’t exactly know what a trap feels like but I’m getting a pretty serious trap vibe from all of this.”

Clem raised an eyebrow. “Oh, it’s a trap alright, just not the kind you’re thinking of. If Valerie meant harm us she would’ve done it by now. No, this is a political trap. She’s setting me up for a scandal so she can have some leverage over me that she can use later on, and you know what, I’m gonna let her have it. There’s just too much at stake. I’ll let her win this one, I can take the hit.”

“What about Thecla?”

“She’ll come around. Did you notice she didn’t bring up what happened to her husband? That tells me his being out of the picture was one of the few things Val didn’t try to pin on me. I’m guessing that whatever happened to him, Val did it out in the open, so she wasn’t able to lie about it. We’re about to learn if Thecla really is ‘still sore’ at her mom about that.”

Glenn helped her finish putting on the new dressing, then returned to his room. The next morning Glenn, Clem, and Omar made their way to the chapel, where they braced themselves for a spectacle. Valerie did not disappoint. She rode into town, whooping and hollering, on a cart full of beer kegs. After it stopped she stood in the back and called out like a circus barker until the locals gathered around to guzzle steins of her brew. By the time the church bells chimed nine, most of the townsfolk seemed good and drunk.

As he observed her serving up her libations, it occurred to Glenn that something was different about Valerie but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. “Clem, something seems a bit off.”

Clem looked at him incredulously. “Do you think there’s going to be anything about this day that won’t be strange?” She had a point.

They entered the chapel and found the pews were already filled with Valerie’s family on one side and the local leadership on the other. “So, does anyone know what the plan is at this point?” Glenn asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Replied Clem. “I’m ready for this day to be nothing more than a bad memory, and we’re only just getting started.” After waiting until the bells chimed ten, Clem wheeled herself outside to chide Valerie “Can we hurry up and get this over with?”

Valerie called out to the crowd “Uh-oh, it looks like someone can’t wait to get to her honeymoon. Y’all keep drinking. There’s plenty more where that came from.” She gave a signal to one of her guards who’d been standing outside the house that Thecla had spent the night in. The guard nodded and went inside. Valerie stepped down from the cart and walked over to Clem. “Ooh, so eager. I like that. Soon we’ll all be just one big happy family.” The guard returned with Thecla, who seemed fretful as she stood by her mother’s side. Valarie commented to Clem “You’d best get on up there now. Isn’t it bad luck for a bride to see her bride before the wedding?” Clem glared. Glenn had seen enough of Clem’s glares that he was beginning to differentiate between them. This wasn’t her simple ‘I’m irritated glare’. Nope, she’d escalated to her ‘I’m going to kill you’ glare. As Clem rolled away, Valerie called after her “Are you sure you don’t remember our first meeting? ‘Bout twenty years ago, back in Everett?”

Clem looked back over her shoulder at Valerie and made no attempt to hide her contempt when she answered “No, I’m pretty sure I’d remember you.”

Valerie shot Clem a devilish smile. “Well, let’s give it a little more time and see if it comes back to you.” To her side, Glenn noticed that Thecla winced and grew ashen when she heard this exchange.

Clem rolled herself up by the altar while Thecla and Valerie set up in the vestibule so Val could walk her down the aisle. As Glenn began to head into the nave, Val stopped him. “Glenn, would you mind hanging back? We’ll need someone to hold the door.”

It seemed an odd request, but OK. He turned to her to say “sure” and caught a glimpse of Thecla over her shoulder. She was giving him a wide eyed look of alarm and tried to mouth some words to him but he couldn’t understand what she was trying to say.

The music started and Valerie began to walk her daughter down the aisle. Thecla looked back at Glenn and mouthed one last word at him. This time he could understand it. She’d said “run!”

He stood motionless at the door, not knowing what to do. Clem was already at the altar and he couldn’t see Omar. He crossed the vestibule to see what was going on outside and found that several of Valerie’s guards were moving toward the entrance. Even if he tried to run, he wouldn’t be able to get past them. Everywhere he looked the townsfolk were struggling to stand, far too intoxicated for it to have just been from the alcohol they’d been served. Even the constables, who’d only shared one stein between them, were falling over themselves, making it clear that the beer had been drugged. Then it finally occurred to him, the thing that was off about Valerie. He hadn’t heard her cough, not even once, since she’d arrived in Havendale. Sister Beatrice had told him that The Provident doctors could treat his father’s Tuberculosis. That meant they could do the same for Val. It was the salvation they’d offered her.

Glenn ran back to the nave as the guards entered the vestibule. He looked toward the altar to find Thecla standing opposite Clem with Father Paschal between them. Glenn was just in time to witness the priest begin the ceremony. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…” As he spoke, Paschal opened his bible. “To bring an end to this war.” He pulled a small revolver from the hollowed center of his book and fired a shot at Clementine that caused her to jerk violently in her chair. Slowly and deliberately he aimed at her center mass and fired three more shots. She gave the same spasming reaction to each hit, while her chair rolled back a little bit each time she jerked. The pastor followed as she rolled, carrying himself in the manner of a righteous adjudicator delivering justice upon the wicked. Paschal paused to say something between each shot but Glenn couldn’t make out what it was due to the cries of horror emanating from the crowd. One of the guards grabbed Glenn and wrenched his arms behind his back while forcing him to his knees. Several of the guests on Valerie’s side of the aisle stood and leveled weapons at the townsfolk who’d been seated on Clem’s side. Just before one of the guards shoved Glenn’s face into the ground, he witnessed Clementine spit blood at Paschal’s face. She glared at him defiantly while her white sweater steadily turned crimson. Glenn looked up from the ground as best he could while the guard applied restraints to his wrists. He saw the pastor aim his pistol at Clementine’s head, only to be tackled from behind by Thecla of all people.

Thecla and Paschal rolled down the steps as the guards ran forward to separate them, followed by Valerie who was yelling for them not to hurt her. The pistol went off and one of the guards fell to the ground clutching his left leg. The flurry of motion at the bottom of the steps came to a sudden halt when a crashing sound was heard coming from the far end of the sanctuary. Everyone looked up to see that one side of the stained glass window had been shattered. Clementine’s wheelchair sat empty with its handles sticking through what had been the base of the window. Two of the guards ran to the window and smashed the rest of it, then fired wildly at the river below. Other guards ran out the door, intent on pursuing Clementine as she floated away.

They picked Glenn up and carried him to the pulpit to present him to father Paschal who was in the process of wiping Clementine’s blood off his face. He acknowledged them with a nod. They quickly positioned Glenn on his knees facing the wall by the bell tower then moved on to secure the other townsfolk who’d been in the chapel. A few inches to the side of him, Glenn spotted a bloody smudge on the bell tower’s maintenance hatch. Suspecting he knew where it’d come from, he subtly wiped it away with his elbow, so no one else would make the same discovery that he had.

Glenn’s attention was drawn to the voice of Father Paschal, who was questioning Thecla about her actions. “Why would you do that? You’ve ruined everything!” Glenn tilted his head so he could see what was going on and spotted Valerie holding her hand up to Paschal, causing the priest to shrink away from Thecla.

Thecla addressed her mom as she answered. “Because the darkest places in hell are reserved for those who fail to act in moments like these. You forced me to pick a side, well I picked the one that hasn’t been lying to me for half of my life. Clementine didn’t set this up, this was all you! She didn’t want me, she didn’t even remember us.”

Valerie helped her daughter to her feet and embraced her as she spoke. She tried to sound soothing but her voice betrayed her frustration. “I’m sorry I had to lie to you, but I knew you were too soft for this. Clementine had to pay and I knew you wouldn’t go along with it if I told you what was really happening.”

Thecla angrily wriggled free from her mother’s embrace. “So I was what, bait in your trap? You made me think she’d send her horde to destroy us if I didn’t come!”

Valerie caught Thecla’s hand as she pulled away. “I’m sorry, but I had to deceive you. You know Ulysses would’ve wanted this… And there is one thing I wasn’t lying about. Clementine did want you. When we went to collect your brother’s body, that drunken beast couldn’t be bothered to utter one peep of consolation. Not one word of apology for taking him from us. All she could do, the whole time we were there, was ogle your ass. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for drawing you into this and I’m sorry I couldn’t bring your brother’s killer to justice.”

Thecla violently shook her hand free of Valerie’s grasp. “Ule would’ve never wanted this! He was full of that macho bullshit he got from dad, all ‘warrior this’ and ‘honor that’. He knew the stakes when he went to Everett. He challenged a legend and he lost. It was stupid but it was entirely his choice... just like this was yours. You say this is about him, but there’s no honor in this! This is just shameful!”

Valerie grabbed Thecla by the shoulders and centered her so she could look her in the eye. “I didn’t do this to honor him, I did this to avenge him. What was I supposed to do? Take Clementine on mano-a-mano? How’s that worked for everyone else who’s tried it? She’s not some ordinary miscreant, she’s a fucking animal! You don’t hunt a monster like her out in the open, you track them from as far off as you can, you hide, you lay traps, and when you strike you’d better make the kill because if you don’t...”

“Animal, monster, beast, you’ve spent the last twenty years telling me how horrible and unhinged she was but then I met her… she was just an ordinary woman, worried to the point of desperation. Everything she said was about how she could help other people… including me. She showed me compassion even after I told her the awful things I thought about her. Does that sound like a monster to you?”

Their conversation was interrupted by one of the guards returning to report that they hadn’t been able to spot Clementine. From across the chapel Paschal erupted. “She’s a crippled old woman with four bullets in her chest, she couldn’t have gone far. Go find her!”

Valerie laughed at him. “You’re not going to find her. That crippled old woman is the apex predator of all apex predators. All we did here was piss her off. You’d be better off spending your time making peace with your maker, because sure as shit, we’re all about to meet him.”

Valerie walked over to Glenn, while Paschal yelled at her “You’ve gone mad. We’ve taken her town and it won’t be long before we find her. She only has one leg, how exactly do you expect her to come after us?”

Valerie ignored him and addressed Glenn. “This Provident prick’s gonna haul you outta here at any moment. He doesn’t get it yet. He thinks he’s won. Dumb fuck’ll probably still have that smug look on his face when she’s mounting his head on her wall. You and I, we know better. She ain’t finished with this, not by a long shot. Guys like him never seem to be able to grasp the concept that it isn’t someone’s size or strength you need to worry about, it’s what they’ve got rattling around in their heads that matters. She’s probably out there right now, cooking up some sort of ambush for us… After she springs you, I want you to give her a message for me. Tell her… tell her to pick a place with flowers and I’ll be there… alone. There’s no need to hurt any of my kids, they had no part in this. I’ll tell them not to resist when she comes rolling in to Santee. She can have The Atlantic. I’ll tell them to give her what she wants, as long as she limits her wrath to just me. She and I, we can meet up, one on one, and slap leather. Everyone knows how that’ll turn out. When it’s done she can just leave me where I fall, to my rest eternal.” Valerie’s voice softened. “I always liked the idea of being buried in a field of wildflowers. Pushing up daisies where the daisies make their home. Won’t ever have to worry about the kids freshening up my grave that way.”

Two of the guards grabbed Glenn and picked him up. They pulled him outside of the chapel to a row of small cages they’d lined up on the ground. They shoved him into a kennel meant for a dog then forced the steel door shut. At a little over six feet tall, the position he’d been forced to contort into in order to fit in the cramped cage was extremely uncomfortable. He couldn’t move, his arms were still bound behind his back and his knees had been forced up to his chest. He couldn’t even manage to wiggle enough to turn over, he was stuck lying on his left side. All he could do was to turn his head. It occurred to him that making him as miserable as possible was their intent. This was the beginning of the Ministry of Guidance’s mental condition process. They were doing this to break his spirit.

One by one, they dragged other townsfolk to the cages and did the same to them, then they stacked the cages onto their wagons. Glenn found himself on the top corner of his stack facing the chapel. They finished loading the cages onto the wagons around a half hour after the bells chimed four. At five bells, gunfire could be heard simultaneously erupting throughout the town. Anyone they weren’t taking with them had simply been shot.

After nightfall, a drunken Valerie stumbled out of the chapel. At nine bells, Glenn spotted Thecla exiting. She was helping the guard she’d shot in the leg during her struggle with Father Paschal, or at least someone who was wearing his uniform. The guard seemed shorter than Glenn remembered and didn’t appear to be putting any weight on his, or rather, her left leg at all. Glenn had a feeling he knew who was really wearing that uniform. She was hopping on her right foot, while bearing much of her weight on the arm she had draped over Thecla’s shoulders. Thecla helped her onto a wagon, then drove the wagon to the community hall. She left the guard in the wagon while she went inside. After nearly an hour, she emerged escorting a prisoner whose hands were bound behind his back. A few more people followed her out of the hall but she made several gestures toward the wounded guard in the wagon, after which they returned inside. She loaded her prisoner onto the wagon and drove it toward the main road. As she passed Glenn, he was able to confirm that the woman in the guard’s uniform was indeed Clementine and the prisoner they were transporting was Omar. Glenn thought back to the events in the chapel. Clem’s wheelchair had been positioned near the bell tower when Thecla had tackled Paschal. While everyone was distracted, Clem had slipped inside the bell tower, then gave her wheelchair a shove toward the window to send her pursuers off in the wrong direction. He’d have to ask her later how she got ahold of the guard’s uniform and managed to get Thecla to help her out of the chapel, but for now, there was the matter of how they were going to rescue him… He sure hoped they had a plan for that as well.

At dawn the wagons began their journey, first south toward the highway, then east. He’d held out hope for some modicum of humane treatment for the first two days of their journey, but by day three it had become clear that his captors had no intention of giving their prisoners any respite from their cages. Nor were they intent on providing them any food. All he was given was water. Glenn’s muscles had begun to burn midway through his first day in the cramped cage. By day three, the rhabdomyolysis pain had become unbearable. Add to that the ever increasing hunger pangs and he found himself wishing his captors would try to interrogate him just so he could capitulate. He knew that they were trying to drive him into a sort of madness, and it was working. He had to do something to keep his mind intact.

He remembered what Clementine had done in the hospital in The Commonwealth, using distraction to control her pain. Since he didn’t have a chart to distract him, nor the catalogue of painful memories available to him that she had, he’d have to find something else to pull his mind away from his predicament. He wracked his brain to try to find examples from the strongest people he knew; his grandfather, his father, his godmother, his sister, Clementine, AJ, Jessi. Eventually he landed on Corrina. She’d survived the most horrific injury he’d ever seen and her only complaint was that it‘d taken her away from her unit. He still hadn’t come up with how he’d make the specialized arm he promised her, but figuring that out could now provide him with the distraction he’d need to get him through this ordeal.

He focused, as much as he could at least, on the diagrams of prosthetic arms he’d seen in the manuals in Everett’s workshop. He tried to picture how he could build one that could in anyway be useful for climbing. He reviewed his memory of how she’d climbed up the damaged building in Johnstown over and over again, trying to gain some insight into her climbing technique that might provide him with a bit of inspiration. Ultimately he realized that he was absolutely clueless about climbing, but since that realization didn’t help him in this instance, he tried to ignore it. He found it impossible to maintain his focus completely. Bumps in the road, loud noises, various actions by his captors, all of them brought him back to reality pretty easily, but when he did manage to detach his mind from his predicament it seemed to help a lot.

Near sundown on day five, he heard a sound that provided him with a glimmer of hope; the distant hum of an engine. He heard it again late on day six, but unlike day five, it stayed with him. Bob was following them. Even after the sun went down and his captors stopped to make their camp for the night, he could still hear Bob circling overhead. As he focused on the sound, it seemed to grow louder. For a moment, Glenn wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him, but then he noticed his captors reacting to the sound as well. The sound grew louder and louder until finally Bob buzzed the campsite. Automatic weapons fire erupted at the sky but the engine noise just got more intense. Bob made a quick pass to the side of the camp, drawing fire as he went, then everyone whose eyes had followed his flightpath found themselves blinded by the abrupt activation of an intense bank of lights. Glenn had to look away while the pink dots cleared from his field of view. The sound of gunfire intensified as he blinked. When he looked back, he made sure to look below or to the side of the lights. They were stationary, mounted on something that was definitely positioned on the ground. He could see the silhouettes of his captors firing in the general direction of the lights, while multiple muzzle flashes could be seen beyond them. Steadily he watched as the silhouettes of his captors fell. To his right, more motion caught his eye. It was the silhouette of a tall man wielding a long melee weapon of some sort. He moved gracefully from captor to captor, his weapon glinting as he struck them down one by one while they were too focused on the muzzle flashes beyond the lights to notice his approach.

In no time, the shooting had stopped, as the last of The Provident agents had fallen. The bank of lights dimmed, and the tall man approached the wagons. More people emerged from behind the lights, each carrying rifles, while their leader sheathed his weapon on his back. When he got close enough, Glenn could see that he was a silver haired man whose face had been creased by age. The weapon he’d wielded so expertly was an aluminum baseball bat. By reputation, Glenn knew who his rescuer was, but still, he was surprised to see that it was Javier Garcia himself who’d saved him.

When Javier saw the cages on the wagons he attempted to open the one closest to him to free its inhabitant, but his effort was thwarted by the presence of a padlock. He drew his bat from his back and proceeded to bash the locks to pieces. “Get these people out of these cages” he ordered. “And radio Richmond, tell them to prep the hospital for a mass casualty event.” He moved from one wagon to the next, smashing off locks as he went, followed by his crew who would pull the survivors out and lay them on the ground once their cages could be opened. When it was Glenn’s turn to be pulled out, the first thing he tried to do was straighten his legs, but his efforts were met with extreme pain. He kept trying until he found himself screaming from the pain, but despite his best efforts he was still unable to straighten out.

Witnessing the condition of the prisoners left Javier enraged. He pointed toward The Provident and announced “I left some of them alive, we need to be sure to keep them that way. Hell’s too good for these assholes.” He walked over and picked up a whimpering Father Paschal, who had both arms and one leg skewed at odd angles after being on the receiving end of Javi’s bat work. “Especially this one. Clem wants a piece of him.”

After the cages were dumped from the Wagons, Javi’s guards loaded the wounded back onto them so they could be transported to Richmond. Javier walked over to where Glenn was laying and asked “Are you Glenn?” Glenn could only manage a pained “yeah” in reply. Javi picked him up and carried him to the armored van that had been the source of the blinding light. “Clem asked me to look after you. You’re safe now. I’m going to take you to Richmond for a while, but she wanted me to let you know, Alexandria is free. The Provident have abandoned Virginia.”

***

He awoke in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. It reminded him of the exam room in the hospital in Cincinnati, but just a little bit different. He felt very weird, like he was floating on a warm breeze. When he turned his head, he felt dizzy, so he decided maybe he shouldn’t do so much of that. It didn’t take long before he fell back to sleep, only to wake up again and repeat the process a few more times. Each time he woke up, he was a little less fuzzy headed. Eventually he was able to notice that he was in possession of body parts other than just his spinning head, several of which were in need of his attention. In particular, he could feel something poking him in the arm, and for that matter, he could also feel something pulling on his nose. He looked down toward his arm but all he saw was a fuzzy field of white. After a bit of effort he was able to get his eyes to focus. The field of white turned out to be a blanket. He wriggled his arm out from under the blanket and saw that there was a bandage wrapped around his forearm with a tube leading out of it. The tube branched off into other tubes that lead to a couple of bags with drip chambers beneath them. One of the bags was labeled “Morphine” while the other was labeled “Normal Saline”. Thinking back to how he came to be there, he remembered something about not being able to move his legs. He moved them around a bit and found that they seemed to be working just fine. He reached up to try to figure out what was tugging on his nose but was stopped by a strong hand around his wrist. He followed the arm that was attached to the hand, and it led him all the way to the face of his father. He tried to speak, but all that came out were sobs.

Carl embraced him and reassured him “It’s over. You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you here.” Once Carl had soothed and calmed his son, he explained what had been going on. The Richmond doctors had kept him in an induced coma while they flushed the myoglobin out of his system. While he was unconscious they’d been feeding him through a tube they’d inserted through his nose. After three days their tests had showed that he was clear of the rhabdomyolysis so they’d discontinued the coma, but he still had multiple pressure wounds along the left side of his body to deal with, so they kept him on the Morphine. After his dad had pointed the wounds out to him, Glenn reached across his body with his right hand to try to assess the damage but all he could feel was gauze.

Carl let him know that Clementine was also somewhere in that hospital. She was there recovering from surgery to remove the bullet that had broken through her overtaxed Kevlar vest. Carl explained that after Thecla smuggled Clem and Omar out of Havendale, she took them to a ham radio operator in Sparta, where they contacted Bob. Clem knew The Provident priest would need to make his way to the coast in order to take his prisoners back to his homeland by sea, so she had Bob bring her to Richmond where she could talk Javier into cutting off their caravan. Javi had been able to get Richmond’s vehicle fleet back up and running using fuel and parts AJ had taken from The Provident’s gun trucks and supply convoys, which was why he was able to use Tripp’s old armored van to rescue Glenn.

As Glenn’s head cleared, memories of what’d happened began to trickle back. “Javi said Alexandria is Free. Is everyone OK?”

“You’re mom and I are OK, but Andrea… They took her.”

Glenn took a sharp breath “The baby…”

Carl cut him off “… is fine. She had a boy. He’s with Etienne. Elodie and Rudy moved in with him to help out for a while… She named him Rick, of course.”

“What do you mean they took her?”

“About a week after Rick was born, she heard some Provs going to town on the Anderson boy, so she killed them and told him to run. They caught him in the woods outside of town and he told them it was Andrea who’d come to his rescue. I can’t blame him, they really did a number on him. They hanged him and made us all watch, then they packed Andrea into a cage like the one Javi found you in and took her up north.”

“How can you be so calm about this?”

“I wasn’t while it was happening but in the condition I was in all it took was a rifle butt to the gut and I couldn’t breathe. They put a watch on me after that, to make sure I wouldn’t try to rescue her. For a while they’d barge in and search our home, pretty much every day, to make sure I wasn’t plotting anything. Then one day, one of their clergy stopped by and gave me these.” He held up three glass bottles. “They’re the cocktail of antibiotics used to treat TB.” Glenn realized that, just like Valerie at the wedding, he hadn’t heard Carl cough even once since they’d begun talking. “They said it was from Andrea, that she’d honored her end of a deal, so they were honoring theirs…”

“Dad this is bad”

“Glenn, this means she’s alive. As long as she’s alive she’ll figure something out.”

“Dad! Clementine took The Commonwealth. As soon as she solidifies her control over them she’ll have their army at her disposal and she’ll use them to hit the Provident’s homeland. If they find Andrea cooperating they’ll think she’s one of them. She’s in danger.”

“What do you mean? If Appalachia had invaded The Commonwealth I think news would’ve spread.”

“It wasn’t an invasion, she did it with a coup. Uh, uh, ‘subterfuge’ is what she called it. She used me as her connection to Rick to get the people on her side.”

Carl released his embrace. “Listen, we need to talk about your new friends. I know you didn’t have much choice but these people, they’re bad news. You won’t believe what I saw on the road here.” Glenn had a feeling he would. “On the field where they fought The Provident, they left heads as far as the eye could see. That goes way beyond anything The Whisperers ever did. And now you’re telling me they used you to take over The Commonwealth. We need get you away from them.”

Glenn looked away. “Dad, about that field.”

Carl sounded distraught. “Aww noo! Oh God no! You saw that? I was around your age when Alpha put twelve of my friends…”

Glenn interrupted him. “Dad, I didn’t just see that, I did that. The pikes those heads are mounted on… I made them…”

Carl was silent for a long time, then he stood and walked out. From down the hall, Glenn heard a commotion. He could hear furniture and equipment being knocked over and people being slammed into walls. He could hear his father screaming “You let me in there! I need answers! She owes me! What have you done to my son! Just what the hell have you done to my son!” Glenn pulled the pillow over his head so he wouldn’t hear anymore.

***

“Glenn, wake up, Glenn. That’s enough napping. I need to go, my ride’s here.” He opened his eyes to see Clementine standing in the doorway. Her right arm was in a sling but that didn’t stop her from using her right hand to carry what was left of her Kevlar vest. “Ah, there you are. Glad you could make it.” She walked in and sat down in the visitor’s chair while muttering “More than you could know.” She hesitated a bit, then confessed “I was worried. I know, this’ll sound crazy, but… there’s this thing, a sort of pattern, that’s happened to me over and over… People would enter my life and I’d find myself in a position where I’d have to make a choice between two of them, where one would live and one… well… like how I chose to take you to the roof instead of Mitch. And it seems like every time I’ve ever been put in that position, it never mattered who I picked, both would end up dead… I know how strange this must sound… I already told you, I’m nuts… but this was all I could think about while I was hiding out in that bell tower. Somehow, I knew I’d make it, but you? I was sure I got you killed. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to see you here. It’s kinda… kinda like a weight’s been lifted. For years I’ve been carrying this feeling that all those deaths were somehow on me… That they were doomed the moment I had to determine which one I’d help and that if they’d just never met me none of that bad shit would’ve ever happened to them. You broke the streak. You’re being here is proof that it was all just a matter of bad luck… Anyway, that’s probably enough of me sounding looney toons for one day, check this out.”

She stood and held her damaged vest up so that Glenn could see where the bullets had hit it. Three had left frayed indentations, while the fourth had hit within one of the frayed areas and broke through. She pointed at the hole. “Here’s the one that got me. The vest slowed it down enough to save me but it still hurt like a motherfucker. This one only went in about half an inch but it still hurt worse than the last time I got shot, and that one went clear through me. All the broken ribs I got this time might have something to do with that.” She reached under the collar of her sweater and pulled out a necklace with a flattened bullet attached to it, which she held up for Glenn to see. “But at least I got a new piece of jewelry out of it.”

A knock could be heard on the frame of the open door. When Glenn looked over he saw Ruby standing in the doorway. “Knock, Knock, Is this a private party or can anyone come in?” She entered without waiting for an answer and sat on the foot of the bed. “How you doin’ there, Glenn?” When all he managed was an “um”, Ruby answered herself by saying “Heavily drugged I see.”

Clem gestured a greeting toward Ruby. “Since Bob was bringing Ruby here today I figured I’d ask her to pick up a few things, like my leg… and something for you” Glenn looked back at Ruby and noticed that she had another Kevlar vest tucked under her arm. “I’ve collected a few extras over the years. I don’t part with them easily, but I figure after what happened in Havendale you should probably have one.” Ruby passed the vest to Clem, who left it on the chair where she’d been sitting. “Alright, I got a message from Jessi. She needs me to come help her negotiate with The Gulf while she’s still got them shitting their pants. Apparently her psy-ops strategy worked… at least according to her… Get better, OK. I’ll see you when this is over.” After Clem and Ruby left the room, Glenn woke up enough to realize he should’ve spoken to her about Andrea.

The first time that he was awake for one of his dressing change, he got to see that his wounds were far worse than the one that Clementine had dealt with on her stump. He was going to be there for a while. Being a teenager stuck in a hospital meant that he quickly got bored, and was soon on everyone’s nerves. Desperate to find something to distract him, the staff introduced him to the hospital’s medical library which included the best computer 2003 had to offer. Navigating the computer seemed instinctive to him, much to the annoyance of the staff who’d spent years trying to figure the damn thing out. Among the articles held within its memory were journal entries that discussed cutting edge prosthetics. They lacked diagrams, but they included detailed descriptions that gave him ideas. He even learned about a technique for donning prosthetic noses that involved surgically implanting magnets for the prosthetic to attach to, which the Richmond surgeons said they’d be able to do pretty easily.

He went to work drafting a plan for one of the designs he’d read about on the computer. It was a modular arm that would include locking attachments that could be used for various activities including a hook with a rubber tip that was specifically designed for indoor climbing and a pickaxe she could use for rock climbing. In addition to those two designs, he also drafted a plan for a hand with ratcheting fingers for everyday use. All that was left to do was the fun part, crafting his ideas into reality… which would have to wait until he could get back to the workshop.

Over the course of the month that he spent in Richmond, news about the war steadily trickled its way to him. Troops from The Commonwealth had rapidly advanced through New England and invaded Ottawa. With their army depleted from their defeats in Pennsylvania and Virginia, The Provident could only put up a token resistance until The Commonwealth pushed through all the way to Manitoulin Island. There the fighting became increasingly intense as it neared the outskirts of their capitol in Providence Bay. Once The Commonwealth’s forces breached the city, the resistance all but evaporated and it wasn’t until they reached the heart of the capitol that they discovered why. When the troopers stormed the grounds of the opulent cathedral that The Provident had built for their leader with the spoils of their conquests, they discovered that it was already littered with the detritus of battle. They found the responsible party when they entered the cathedral itself. Andrea had utilized the chaos that had been created by The Commonwealth’s approach to escape and free the other prisoners held by the Ministry of Guidance. Together they overran the cathedral and captured Father Arden, who they presented to their liberators on his own pulpit, trussed up like a prized calf. The charismatic leader of The Provident had kept the people of this island in high spirits throughout the trials, convincing them that they’d been given a safe haven from the apocalypse because they had been divinely chosen. The silver tongued con man was no prophet, he merely had a particular talent for observation. He noticed early on the rate at which the walkers were decaying and planned accordingly, mapping out the key resources he wanted to seize as soon as the walkers had thinned out enough for them to leave their island. He’d timed his move into the Golden Horseshoe and New England perfectly as the trials neared their end, giving his people an advantage in the coming arms race, but then he became sloppy and tried to go too far too fast. He started looking only at the numbers his scouts were presenting to him rather than assessing the quality of the leaders he was facing or how well prepared their troops were to defend their lands. On paper his conscript army had dwarfed the Appalachian and Virginian forces, but when reality reared its ugly head, he found out the hard way that numbers weren’t all that mattered. In the end all he’d led his followers to was ruin.

News from the south was just as good. Long running feuds between the various factions within The Gulf had sapped their morale and their resources, leaving them particularly vulnerable to Jessi’s psy-ops campaign. After suffering through mass desertions and seeing nothing but inaction from their ally to the east, the leadership of The Gulf felt the collapse of their northern ally was the last straw. They decided to cut their losses and sue for peace with the Appalachians. They called for a parlay and to their horror found themselves negotiating with the woman who’d appeared in the photograph with a thousand heads behind her. She wasn’t interested in peace, all she wanted was more heads. She explained that they’d invaded her homeland and killed her people, which made them raiders, and she didn’t suffer raiders to live. Insulted, they left the table in a huff, thinking they’d have to provide her more motivation to seek peace. Instead, after a week of enduring her artillery fire, which had become surprisingly accurate thanks to the addition of a new one-armed gunner, they became even more desperate to bring the hostilities to an end and tried to find a way to negotiate with someone other than Jessi. So, Jessi called in Clem for some good-cop/bat-shit-insane-cop negating tactics, where Clem got to play the sane one. Jessi frothed and bayed for blood, which made Clem’s demands for complete surrender seem quite reasonable by comparison. When it was over, Clem had taken possession of The Gulf, while most of their leaders were permitted to keep their heads.

Midway through their campaign against The Gulf, when it became clear that desertions had crippled the southern invaders, AJ took his Rangers and pivoted to the east. They rode all the way to Santee unopposed. It was as Valerie had said, she’d ordered her people not to resist. When AJ arrived at the Citadel, he was greeted by Thecla with a message from Val. She’d gone into hiding, but she’d taken a radio with her that she’d listen to each day at noon. All Clem had to do was message her on a given frequency. She just had to name a location and Val would show up to duel her. Val’s only condition was that the place be full of flowers. Sure enough, Val showed up at the place Clem named, but rather than duel her, Clem had prepared an ambush to take her alive. The Gulf’s forces had been able to sack Junaluska because of her. Between Junaluska and Havendale, she had the blood of thousands on her hands. There was no way that Clem would let her go out in a blaze of glory. Valerie would rot, just not in a field of flowers. She’d spend the rest of her days in a cell, never to see the sun again, let alone a flower.

By the time Glenn left the hospital, Clementine ruled the lands from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson’s Bay and from the Great Plains to The Atlantic. She had her own petroleum facilities in gulf south, the natural resources of Appalachia, agriculture from the Plains, industry in the North, and a large workforce to draw from in the Midwest. She had all the ingredients she needed to unite the world.


End file.
